This invention relates to talking dolls of the type having internal prerecorded speech mechanisms. More particularly, the present invention relates to talking dolls of the type having internal prerecorded speech mechanisms, wherein the doll's educational speech is activated by pressing on certain parts of the doll's body and head region. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to talking dolls of the type having internal prerecorded speech mechanisms, wherein the doll's educational speech can be programmed by the user to play phrases in a desired sequence. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to talking dolls of the type having internal prerecorded speech mechanisms, wherein the doll's educational speech is programmed to advance with the child user and to educate the child user as to the names and functions of the different body parts.
Prior art versions of dolls having prerecorded speech involved the use of magnetic audio tape or phonograph records as the speech mechanisms within the dolls for playing the prerecorded speech. These speech mechanisms played by way of mechanical means within the dolls. However, a doll is by nature a toy and an object to be played with by children and, as a result, is often subject to much jarring and turbulent motion. It was found that, unfortunately, the mechanical speech mechanisms of the prior art talking dolls did not hold up well against physical use by children. The often-violent movements caused the mechanical speech systems to be damaged and affected the quality of the doll's speech.
In addition, those prior art talking dolls that use magnetic audio tape or phonograph records as the mechanisms within the dolls for playing the prerecorded speech are limited with regard to speech playback. In a prior art device capable of playing several speech phrases, the phrases are prerecorded in a particular, predetermined order, and a user could play a second phrase only after a first phrase has completed playing. Also, it is often the case in the prior art talking dolls that all the phrases must be played from beginning to end in the exact sequence in which they are prerecorded onto the doll's speech mechanism. These talking dolls do not have the capacity for random access, i.e., the ability to access any particular speech phrase out of sequence or while another speech phrase is playing. Furthermore, none of the prior art talking dolls capable of playing several speech phrases is capable of being preprogrammed by a user so that it will play a sequence of more than one speech phrase without the user having to press any activation buttons between spoken phrases, i.e., they have no "memory" capacity. Thus, a child user could not use such prior art talking dolls to play educational "follow me" games, in which the child learns the words or phrases by repeating the user-programmed sequence of speech phases played by the doll. Also, such dolls that employed internal speech mechanisms to identify different body parts did not employ the speech mechanisms in such a way as to enable the doll to "grow" with the child user. In other words, whereas the prior art dolls occasionally provided speech that identifies a particular body part upon activation of that body part, these dolls did not provide more advanced speech for those same body parts to enable the child user to learn more from the doll even after the child has learned identification of the body parts.
Moreover, none of the prior art dolls have the ability to effectively provide more than one speech-activating switch within the head and face region of the talking doll in order to activate speech relating to more than one head and face region part. The reason for this is that pressing on one area of the head or face often activated more than one of the several speech-activating switches on the head and face region or activated an unintended one of those switches; none of the prior art dolls effectively enabled each head or face region switch to play only the associated prerecorded speech phrase.
The following prior art dolls provide prerecorded speech through the use of switches within or on various parts of the dolls' bodies for activating the speech mechanisms. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,950,200 (Curran) discloses a doll that plays phrases of speech off of an internal two-track magnetic audio tape, wherein the speech could be played either in a normal tone and volume off the first audio tape track or in a whisper tone and volume off the second audio tape track, depending on activation of either of two switches, one on the doll heart and another on the doll hand. Consistent with the deficiencies of the prior art dolls mentioned above, the phrases of speech on each of the audio tape tracks of the Curran patent are in a predetermined order and may not be played out of that order. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 3,755,960 (Tepper et al.) discloses a doll that produces spoken expressions played off of an internal phonograph that is activated by movement of one of the doll's appendages (arms, legs or head) or by pushing of the doll's belly-button. Also, U.S. Pat. No. 4,451,911 (Klose et al.) discloses a doll that plays vocal messages off of an internal phonograph that is actuated by pushing buttons on different places of the doll's body. As stated above, none of the prior art dolls reflected by these patents discloses any ability to allow a user to program the doll or the speech mechanisms so as to play more than one expression in a desired sequence off of a "memory."
Furthermore, neither Curran nor Tepper et al. discloses a talking doll that produces speech when a portion of the doll's face is touched. Although Klose et al. shows a mouth switch that, when pressed, activates the speech playing mechanism, the prior art dolls all lack the ability to provide for multiple switches within the head and face regions of the talking doll so that pressing on one area of the head or face activates only the associated switch to play the associated prerecorded speech phrase.
It is desirable to provide a talking doll of the type having an internal prerecorded speech mechanism that plays a different speech phrase upon the activation of a switch at each of several different places within the doll's body or head region.
It is also desirable to provide a talking doll of the type having an internal prerecorded speech mechanism that plays several different speech phrases for the same place within the doll's body or head region.
It is similarly desirable to provide a talking doll of the type having an internal prerecorded speech mechanism that allows the speech phrases to be randomly accessed by the user at any time during the playing of a previous speech phrase.
It is further desirable to provide a talking doll of the type having an internal prerecorded speech mechanism that allows the doll to be programmed by a user so that a sequence of speech phrases may be played in any order determined by the user.
It is even further desirable to provide a talking doll of the type having an internal prerecorded speech mechanism that enables the doll and its prerecorded speech to advance with the child user to more advanced speech.
It is still further desirable to provide a talking doll of the type having internal prerecorded speech mechanisms and having multiple switches within the doll's head and face region, wherein each switch is associated with a different prerecorded speech phrase within the speech mechanism and is arranged such that each of the switches in the head region can be activated without unintentionally activating any of the others.
It is yet further desirable to provide a talking doll of the type having an internal prerecorded speech mechanism, wherein the speech mechanisms are less likely to be damaged when the doll is played with by children.